


Blood from Stone

by gilead



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:56:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilead/pseuds/gilead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of many nights Clarke and Lexa spend together in Polis, post-finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood from Stone

In the muffled pre-dawn of Lexa's bedroom in Polis, Clarke lingers, more obviously than she usually deigns to. A miniature replica of Pauna on the windowsill next to the bed snarls in her direction, close enough to touch, to place in the palm of her hand. On a whim, she turns it outwards.

The view is one she could put to paper on command: sun-baked rooftops and streets that grow more tidy the closer they run into the centre of the city, like coagulating blood. And every day at the same hour begins the unapologetic clockwork of hoofbeats and wagons, because the people—Lexa's people—survive without knowledge of what has been bartered for their lives.

She wonders if Lexa calls this home, like she once called the Ark and Camp Jaha home, all the while they embedded their hooks into her flesh.

"You are thinking needlessly.” A set of fingers dip into the well of her spine, warm and sluggish, and her attention scatters.

"There's no cure for that," Clarke replies, rolling onto her back. Lexa studies her too alertly for the early hour, fingers mapping what Clarke keeps from her. Worse yet, the extent of her understanding spans further than Clarke dares guess.

They say nothing for some time, then the bed wobbles and a kiss is pressed to the sharpest part of her shoulder. “You enjoyed yourself last night.” 

A statement so barefaced would be insufferably presumptuous, but Lexa carries on with the absolute confidence of a leader, or a lover.

“Nobody was poisoned, and Abby said your armour looked nice,” Clarke comments, her tone in no way matching Lexa's. 

An eyebrow flicks in her direction. "What answer is possible to such false praise?"

“She actually said that it was an unnecessary and brutish attempt at intimidation, but I thought you looked good.”

“Was it good?” Lexa teases, thick and dark, Clarke's minimizing all too transparent.

Clarke rolls a laugh in the back of her throat. “That's not an appropriate answer to praise.”

“To yours or your mother's?”

A blithe hand rakes up her inner thigh and Clarke indulges a swell of affection too pure to last. “You're the worst.”

"I am,” intones Lexa, in the way she does. She withdraws her hand. “I have a matter requiring your attention."

"What is it?" Clarke sits up, tenting the furs around her. Lexa merely watches from her lazy recline, curls riotous and pupils dilated, still as a mirror, and suddenly unbearable. Clarke returns her attention to the figurine on the windowsill.

"It is not for the council."

"But it's business?"

"You are leaving with your people this morning, are you not?"

"I am."

She wonders if others like them have rules about keeping blood out of the bed they share. Between her and Lexa, clean sheets are a mystery all to their own.

"The new leader of the Ice Nation cannot let her personal quarrel with the Boat people rest. It poisons the alliance. I cannot allow it."

Clarke recalls the story. The Ice Nation's late queen had been killed in a land dispute that was settled in her absence. Her successor has proven less inclined to forgive it. She turns back to Lexa, eager to see something that will not be there.

Unbidden, another face superimposes itself, the memory of the new queen's first appearance at the council table, soused with paint, dwarfed by her cloak. The softness of her face belied her age: younger than Lexa, younger than Clarke. It was then Clarke's line of thought detoured without her consent, to the malleability of the new queen's heart, and whether Lexa would see a resemblance when she gave the order she knew was coming.

None of them are innocent, but it is no measurement of what they deserve, and none of these thoughts have currency in the world they have made, but Clarke can't help but think them with the same morbid fixation she would watch friend or foe die by her own hand.

"Do what you have to,” she tells Lexa, but the finality of it is foregone.

“She is unproven, and claims few true allegiances yet, the blame fall where it may. We must be prepared for retaliation regardless.”

Clarke wants to ask this: what kind of retaliation? She wants to ask this: do you not want the council to know how easily they too could be sold down the river? She wants to ask this: will you send the Ice Nation their child-leader's head in a box? Instead, she says this: "I'll be ready."

Lexa inclines her head, palms flat to her thighs. Clarke pushes the furs aside and dresses in silence. She always claims the edge of the bed closest to the exit. There is, after all, nothing to be announced between them now.

At the door, out of scorching distance, she glances back without distinctly recognizing the impulse. But Lexa's back is silhouetted against the window, and she is freed from all expectation.

**Author's Note:**

> “I am trying to expose a secret told to nobody yet; I am asking you (as I stand with my back to you) to take my life in your hands and tell me whether I am doomed always to cause repulsion in those I love?” - Virginia Woolf, The Waves


End file.
